Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone! Unfortunately, I'm stuck with work tonight, then a late night of homework. I hope everyone had a fun weekend.

One thing that is annoying about Halloween:
Guys, if you dress up like a sports fan because you are a sports fan, you might as well spit on yourself because that's stupid.
Girls, you have to dress up like something! It's ok if it's a little risque or sexy, but same goes for you: don't dress like a hoskank because you are a hoskank. Be creative.

That is all.

Programming Xcore

I've fallen out of the blogging for a little while due to school work and a program I've been working on. In order to keep its extremely nerdy nature a secret, let's just say that this is a complex (for my level) program that will take in a list of things with multiple values attributed to them, followed by a few calculations and then some output, all wrapped up in a graphical user interface (think of a popup window on your computer).

So much for not sounding nerdy... Anyways, I've been hard at work, as the light at the end of the tunnel is nearing! I continue to run into lack of experience problems, which slows me down! Most of the time is also spent testing every new function I add, for fear of assuming correctness then realizing much later that it doesn't work. Not fun for programming.

Once I finish this, though, I will be able to say that I have finally created my first legitimate, useful program. Milestone 1 on the way.

The picture is merely something I found funny.. I hope it was a joke

Another Great Day

I was lucky enough to have two outdoor adventures in the span of 4 days! I got to go bouldering, hiking, and caving all in one day with two great people!

We hit up Rocktown over on Pidgeon Mountain in Georgia for our bouldering/hiking. It's so beautiful up there! We climbed around on a bunch of the boulders, pausing every now and then to talk or just enjoy the scenery.

My absolute favorite things to do when hiking is either to find a creekbed with big rocks to jump on/across or getting to the top of a large boulder (whether climbing or simply just scrambling up). This place has a WEALTH of large boulders.

I've been a few times now and it never gets old: easy hike in, calm surroundings, gorgeous views atop the boulders, etc.

Tomorrow is for homework, some fun projects, and a little climbing! I can't get enough!

Camping Trip!! in Cherokee National Forest

Just one word to describe the camping trip: Icantwaittogocampingagainbecausewehadhadalotoffun. After a quick stop at Academy Sports, we headed out for our destination. Originally, we had decided to go to Pidgeon Mountain to camp and visit Rocktown the next day for some epic bouldering, but the camoflauged cult of society had to ruin the weekend by closing down the park on Saturday and Sunday for huh'in (murdering animals); instead we ventured for the Cherokee National Forest!

The whole group!

We had a little trouble finding a good spot that wasn't a super "family-friendly" lot (who goes camping just to camp twenty feet away to another family that goes to bed early?) and ended up driving around for a good part of 35 minutes, trying to communicate our locations via the equivalent of AT&T cell phone service (yeah, I went there).

Finally, we had found Campsite #2: our home for the weekend. After we found the right combination for starting a fire (it was harder than it should have been) and setting up the tents, we got settled in next to the campfire. A little bit later, we had two more join the group, one of which being a puppy!

Hours upon hours seemed to pass by before we check the time; it happened to be around 8:30pm or something like that. Shwoopa doopa dee bop, we have the whole night ahead of us! Time to enjoy the stereotypes of canned food and s'mores and stories!

Most of us went to bed around 12am, some waking up a little later to join the remaining around the fire for another little while. It was a pretty cold night, having been forecast for around 31 degrees; we were lucky there was almost zero wind. I know my sleeping experience was "Ok, if I keep my head in the sleeping bag, my face won't be cold... ugh, it's stuffy in here now. Rise, my head... ahh, cool air on my face... GOOD LORD it's cold, back in........ man, it's stuffy..." Nevertheless, I seemed to get a pretty decent night's rest. Assuming everyone else did, we did pretty well.

We kind of just chilled around the campsite for a little while after we had gotten up, snacking around here and there, just enjoying being outside not working or worrying about school; a couple of leisure naps ensued. Some of us went around the area surrounding our site. We were next to a decent creek, yet also next to a gravel road, where we would get the occasional passing car, ALWAYS slowing down to look at us and then continue: a little weird. There was a huge camp site across the road from us with only two people on it. After they left, we checked it out, wishing we had gotten that one, but now we know it's there for next time!

Packed up and leaving the site, we lose a camper (he went home), but head for a nearby cave that we soon find out to have been barred up and closed (apparently, we humans give the bats some nasty disease). We lose two more campers on our way to search for Benton falls, and then one more when we reach the Ocoee Dam Diner (which has the best dam food, hehe).

Just five of us left, we head out for Benton Falls, located at Chilhowee. I'll let a few pictures describe the waterfall.  

Benton Falls

Laura and Taylor

Me and my little lady

Taylor and John

Me, Laura, and Jesse

There was a lot more water than last time I had been!

Taylor, John, and Laura

This picture turned out awesome!

John, you had to make that face, didn't you?

Can't wait until we all get to go again! Although we missed out on Rocktown this weekend, we're making up for it by going tomorrow for some climbing and caving! Loving life!

Camping trip tomorrow!

I'm really excited about actually getting to go camping this weekend! We've all asked off work (for the most part), and are ready to relax next to a campfire! The fire will be almost worshiped this weekend, as the low for the night will be close to 30F! Hopefully we'll get some hiking in and, possibly, see some boulders we can mess around on! I'll be posting pictures as soon as possible! I hope everyone has (or had) a great Fall Break! Take a short break from school to just sit and think about things!

Got Lucky This Time

I was heading home earlier tonight on Amnicola highway, and there was a short traffic jam. After the brief heavy winds from the short storm just minutes before, a tree had fallen into the road.

A man had ran completely over the trunk of the tree and totaled his car (refer to pictures below); in his defense, I also wouldn't have seen the tree until it would have been too late. It was dark outside and the trunk was just short enough on the road to lay below the headlights.

Luckily, he was completely unscratched and the two of us and another man moved the tree and braches off the highway so no one else might hit them and possibly suffer a worse outcome.

Everyone be extra careful when conditions are bad! Anyone else could have hit that tree and it could have turned out worse. We, as humans, are fragile and finite.

Sporadic Learning

After my Linear Algebra class, I went to enjoy some Qdoba (nachos... mmm) to put something other than a Payday in my stomach. Directly afterwards, I went back to school, turned the iPod on to some fast metal, and headed for the library. I know what you're thinking: "Fast metal to study to?"

Yes. Today it worked out amazing. I got up to the third floor, grabbed a seat at a desk and immediately started cranking out homework solutions as if the music was driving my every move. I seemed to innately understand much of what I was looking at, even though I was hard-pressed to simply understand some of the work prior to today. For my standards, I got about four hours of work done in two and a half hours. \\m//

Just got done attempting a programming assignment. I have most of it done except for a weird error that I have not gotten for something I've done before.. Hmm.. *quick email to the teacher*

Now all I've got to do tonight is finish a pre-lab for my lab period tomorrow and I might just have some time to, I don't know, sit and think about something other than homework for a little bit!!

Today has definitely inspired me. Gotta keep it up!

Full week ahead

I've noticed that Google has been showing my post times to be somewhere around 3 hours sooner than when I actually post. I'm going to have to fix that somehow.

This week has a load of work in it. I've got a full agenda for studying, making sure every detail is covered (no more surprises on the next test!). Because of the studying planned, I'm also predicting a short-term compulsive eating disorder to develop through Thursday.

After this week of hard work, CAMPING this Friday!! And fall break right afterwards! We're hitting up the wonderful Pidgeon Mountain, which is also the location of Rocktown, and outdoor bouldering area.

Got a lot to do and alot to pack/remember for the week!

This may show up again during my finals.

Not-So-Haunted Hilltop

Today was a pretty nice off day. I got to spend some time with my little lady Taylor at the mall, then later meet up with Andrew to bust out some Starcraft 2! We know we truly love the game because we tend to lose terribly most of the time, but we continue to play, believing that we each have a new master plan for undeniable success on the RTS (real-time strategy) battlefield. Alas, most of our success comes from laughter at our fail-o-meter hitting the highest readings.

*sigh* What seemed like a short time of fun ended and I was off to another gathering. Some friends from work invited me to come to the Haunted Hilltop haunted house/maze/hayride. What we hoped was going to be awesome was... mehh.. A few parts made us jump, but nothing really worth the $18 admission, although some or all of it goes to a charity for Christmas. I ended up talking to one of the ghouls about how delicious the ice cream I had earlier was and that he should go get a Sonic Reese's blast as well, to which he agreed. In English. The ghouls, zombies, and ghosts all seemed like they were bored of being there, seeing as how most of their growls and screams were followed by nonchalant behavior and apathetic gestures. Hopefully they get a little more into it closer to Halloween, when their biggest business will hit. Step it up, people!

We had fun hanging out together though! We hit up some Steak n' Shake afterwards. I'm pretty sure the cheese in the cheese fries was from Taco Bell.

Oh man, I'm yawning so hardcore. 4:09AM hits fast.

Hopes have risen!

Spoke to my teacher about the grades and he said he will drop th lowest test grade and double the final! Sounds bad but this is wonderful news for me! Time to celebrate by destroying my bodily fuctions one bite at a time...

Society Survives through Morality (part 3)

 For this final explanation of my theory, let me present one last review of my last two posts:

A child that does not share, in general, has less friends because they are not fun.

A (known) murderer has no friends because no one wants to die.

A society with no creation of new members will eventually cease to exist. 

The definition of society and its survival :

Regarding my understanding of a society, the existence of a society is based on the distinction of having members to be in the society; the definition is circular logic, and there is no other way to describe it. A group of members form a society, therefore, a society must have a group of members. (If you're not with me, don't forget to exhale; it's a very important part of the breathing process and you obviously need to be reminded). 

Let's think of the idea of a society as a living, breathing entity: its ultimate goal is survival. It always wants to exist and knowing that it must have members to exist, it wants to perpetuate the existence of those members as well.

We know that society is just an idea though, but as humans we are always defining things for our understanding.

We are programmed with a need to survive; our survival consequently yields the survival of the society. I believe we can all agree that it is our intelligence that has allowed us to thrive on Earth. Growing our numbers and technology allows us to inhabit many places of the world and, in general, live longer than before. The longer we live, the longer our society exists. This should be a sufficient segway into the "progression" aspect of my primary thought.

Our society dictates that we must share morals, otherwise we will suffer a loss of "togetherness".

Morals are ideas and beliefs that drive our actions.

Ideas and beliefs generally group us together, (as it is rare to find a team or club that does not have a collective set of ideas and beliefs). Children who are not taught to share tend to have less friends and, therefore, are not part of a group.

Grouping, in which the members share ideas, can be labeled as a society. If the murderer is feared as a threat by members of a society, the society will not allow them to remain in its ranks (so the murderer is sent to prison). A group is maintained through a collective effort of all members.

Teaming up is done to reach a common goal, which, in the context of the fragility of life, is survival. Throughout human history, our technological advancements, whether it be the harnessing of fire or the medical advances that prolong our lives, have allowed us to prosper and learn from each other, increasing all humans' ability for survival. This is progression!

 Allow me to restate my thesis:

"The morals that exist within a society are held for the sake of the society's progression."

A society with functioning members working for the good of the collective through advancement and preservation of morals (among a majority) is more likely to survive as a single organism. 

Think of the human body. It functions just like it's supposed to as long as all parts work in unison. When even one thing goes wrong for long enough: Diabeetus.

You didn't think I could wait this long to crack a joke, did you?

Thank you everyone for reading! I hope you got something out of this. Please comment for facebook message me with your feedback! I'd love to hear your thoughts!